by Susan Meier
She took a few more careful steps into the room. “She should sleep the entire time I’m gone. But if she doesn’t, change her diaper, give her a bottle and play with her like we did this morning.”
He nodded, but she wouldn’t look at him. She kept her gaze focused on the floor.
Heat swamped him. He hadn’t meant to be so angry with her. After all, his family wasn’t her fault.
“You might want to get Jimmy to help you set up the play yard and swing we bought yesterday afternoon with the crib. She’ll love the swing. It will definitely settle her if you can’t get her to stop crying.”
He said, “Thanks,” wishing she’d just meet his gaze, knowing he didn’t deserve a smile. But she turned and left the room.
He tossed his pencil to his desk. This was why he hated dealing with people, and the truth of why he didn’t want to go to Texas. Alone in London, with too much time to think about things, he’d begun to wonder if maybe his problem with his extended family wasn’t the fault of his seven siblings but his.
Maybe he was the reason the whole damned family couldn’t get along. After all, he and his twin, Ellie, contributed to the reason his mother had left Texas. At least, that was what Cedric had told him the night of their big fight. Had his mother not gotten pregnant, she might have been able to handle living in Texas. But having twins in a rural county, so far away from her family, had made her run.
* * *
Claire left Matt’s house, grateful for an hour alone in her car, even if she was fighting traffic.
When she arrived at Dysart Adoptions, she immediately walked back to Joni’s office.
“Hey.”
Blond-haired, blue-eyed Joni looked up. “Hey! I’m glad you could come in.”
She winced. “I’m sorry I dumped everything on you without any notice.”
Joni motioned for her to sit. “It’s not like we’re really busy. I just hate to see you wasting your vacation on something that’s essentially work.”
“I know. But Bella’s special and in a way so is Matt. He wants to be a good dad so much that he can’t hide it. But he’s more than a bit rough around the edges.” She slid to the seat in front of Joni’s desk. “Did you know his nickname on Wall Street is Iceman?”
Joni’s face fell. “How awful for Bella.”
“Well, that’s just it. I’d think how awful for Bella, if I didn’t keep getting glimpses of a nice guy underneath his Iceman exterior.”
Joni laughed, but her laughter quickly died. “Oh. Wait.” She studied Claire for a second, then said, “You’re not falling for him, are you?”
Claire sat up in her chair. “Absolutely not.” She’d had this conversation with herself in the car driving to the adoption agency. And convinced herself she hadn’t gotten angry that he’d yelled at her; she’d gotten angry that he hadn’t learned to control his temper around the baby. “Number one, he’s so far out of my league I’d be crazy to even consider it. Number two, I’m literally teaching this guy how to love. He says he hurt his ex-wife so badly he had to make it up to her by helping her new husband with a business deal. And he can’t understand why Ginny would leave her daughter in his care when she above everybody else knows he can’t love. I’d be crazy to get involved with him.”
Joni said, “Okay. Good.”
“I mean, it’s not like the guy doesn’t have potential. If I’m reading the situation right, I think he had a very soft heart at one time and something happened in his family that broke it. I’m guessing his Iceman image is a defensive wall to keep him from getting hurt again. Which is why I think there’s lots of hope for him with Bella.”
Joni inclined her head. “That makes sense.” She caught Claire’s gaze. “As long as you’re only working to repair his heart enough to raise a baby, not because you want something to happen between you two.”
“I already said I don’t want anything to happen between us.”
“Because bringing him far enough along that he’d be able to love you—as well as a baby—would be a big job.”
“I know.”
“And it would probably end up with you getting hurt.”
“I know that, too.”
“Just checking.”
Joni dropped the subject after that and they went to work on quickly reviewing the few cases Claire had on her desk. But when she left Dysart Adoptions, Joni’s words rolled around in her head.
She could probably teach Matt enough to care for Bella in a day or two. She hadn’t needed to take the whole week off.
Was she subconsciously trying to heal him for herself?
Did she think she could be the woman of his dreams?
CHAPTER EIGHT
WHEN Claire returned, she found Matt in the kitchen, making lunch. Bella sat in the high chair, banging a rattle on the tray. Matt stood at the grill beside the stainless-steel stove.
“Are those grilled cheese sandwiches I smell?”
“Yes.”
She shrugged out of her coat. “Really?”
He glanced over, then turned his attention back to his sandwiches. His voice was chilly as the ocean in January when he said, “I can cook. I wasn’t always rich.”
“Ah.”
“My stepfather was rich. And yes, I grew up in the lap of luxury, but I had to put myself through school. I got a job, lived in a rat hole of an apartment and paid enough tuition to put a new wing on the library just to get a basic bachelor’s degree.”
Unable to stop herself, she laughed. “Why would you want to live in a rat hole of an apartment if your family was rich?”
“I had a falling-out with my stepfather.” His voice wavered a bit, as if he didn’t want to answer, but he had.
She hung her coat across the back of a chair. Combining the conversation she’d had with Joni to this revelation, she knew it was time to tread lightly. She’d been pushing him to be sweet, to be nice, to be honest, for Bella’s sake, and it finally dawned on her how hard that might be for him. He was a guy so accustomed to getting his own way that he’d rather pay his tuition himself and live in a rat hole than make up with his stepfather. And here she was forcing him to buckle under for everything she wanted.
Of course, she was doing it for Bella.
She ambled toward the grill. She continually pushed him because Bella needed good care, but she didn’t have to be a shrew. She pointed at the sandwiches. “You wouldn’t want to share those, would you?”
“If my mother taught me anything, it was to share. I’m a great host.”
“I’d set the table as repayment.”
“I suppose that could be a deal.”
“Great.”
She rummaged until she found plates and cups, set the table and made a pot of coffee. He heated soup to go with the sandwiches and they sat at the table to eat, with Bella happily chattering in the high chair beside them.
“So how does a preppy boy survive living in a rat hole?”
He stopped his spoon halfway to his mouth. His lips quirked a bit. “Not easily.”
“I can imagine.”
“I don’t think you can. I’d never actually seen a bug indoors before, so cockroaches scared the hell out of me.”
She burst out laughing. “Good grief!”
“The walls of my apartment were paper thin. I froze in the winter and sweltered in the summer.” He smiled, almost wistfully. “It certainly taught me a lot about life.” He caught her gaze. “Real life. Not the sheltered existence I had as Cedric Patterson’s son.”
“I’ll bet.” She cocked her head. If he’d survived that, learning to care for Bella should be a piece of cake. But now wasn’t the time to remind him of that. They were making up after their argument and she would do her part. She would share a little about herself, too, so he wouldn’t feel he was always the one giving. “I actually did about the same thing.”
He frowned. “Really? You left the lap of luxury for a rat hole?”
“Maybe not the lap of luxury, but a very comfortable home
. I was angry with my dad because he just never seemed to want me around, so I refused to take his money for tuition.” She shook her head. “Actually, that’s not totally true. I never asked him for money for tuition to see if he’d remember that I needed it. He didn’t. All the deadlines passed and suddenly I had a twenty-thousand-dollar tuition bill that needed to be paid immediately and no money. And I was too angry to ask my dad to please remember he had a daughter.”
Matt’s face softened as he said, “What did you do?”
“I went to the bank and withdrew my savings and paid it.”
“Ouch.”
“At least I had savings. I had the first semester’s tuition and enough for a good bit of the second semester, but I was furious. He never even considered that I’d need money. I was getting an allowance, but it wasn’t enough for tuition and books and the dorm. Just basics like one meal a day and shampoo. And I realized he didn’t even care enough about me to ask.” She swallowed back the wave of emotion that clogged her throat. “So I decided the hell with him and I went job hunting.”
“That’s when you became a nanny.”
“Yep. Changed my classes to night classes and lived in with the families I worked for so I didn’t have to worry about the dorm. And became my own woman.”
His brow furrowed. “So, we’re sort of alike.”
“A little, but my story doesn’t end as happily as yours.”
He sent her a look, encouraging her to explain. Unsure if she should, she sucked in a breath. But in the end, she decided that if she intended to push him past his boundaries, the least she could do was be honest with him.
“My dad died my third year at university. All the money he made, all the money that kept him from me, meant nothing. He had a heart attack when he was alone and, with no one to help him or even call an ambulance, he died.”
Matt reached across the table and covered her hand with his. “I’m so sorry.”
“If he’d paid one whit of attention to me, I would have been there. He wouldn’t have died. But he’d treated me like an afterthought and I genuinely believed he didn’t want me around.” Bottled up feelings began to pop free, making her voice shaky and her eyes water. “But do you want to know the real punch line of this story? All his money came to me. All that money that kept him from me.” She paused to take a cleansing breath. “I didn’t want it. But I wasn’t so foolish as to flush it down a toilet.”
He barked a short laugh, one of acknowledgment, but with very little humor.
“I bought a new car and my condo and gave the rest to charity.”
He studied her from across the table. “You gave your inheritance to charity?”
“I didn’t want it. I took enough for a decent start on life, then let it go. I didn’t want the money that had stolen my dad from me.”
“And that’s why you’re not impressed with money.”
She inclined her head, not able to speak. Now she wasn’t just remembering her time at university. Memories of her lonely years as a little girl had also floated to the surface. Memories of how much she’d wanted her father’s love, and how stubborn she’d gotten as a teenager, staying out of the house on weekends that she’d known he’d be home because she feared he’d only spend his time working and ignore her. And she couldn’t handle the pain of his silent rejection anymore.
Tears filled her eyes and the lump of emotion came back to her throat. She missed her dad. But, then again, it seemed she’d spent her whole life missing her dad.
“That’s why you want me to be a good dad for Bella.”
She nodded.
He pulled his hand away and scrubbed it down his face. “I’m sorry.”
“I’m sorry, too.” Her voice broke. They were finally genuinely getting to know each other. He wasn’t apologizing for bringing up a sensitive subject any more than she was apologizing for getting hurt over his sniping at her. Their apologies were for their misconceptions about each other up to this point. All the same, it was the first time she’d spoken about her dad with anyone and emotions she hadn’t expected overwhelmed her.
“Sometimes I look back on the years I was in school being stubborn and headstrong over my dad’s ‘slights’ and I realize that if I’d pushed for his attention things might have been very different.”
To her embarrassment, her tears spilled over. She’d cried about her dad before, but never so honestly and certainly never with another person. But she could talk about this with Matt because she knew he understood. He hadn’t gotten along with his stepfather any better than she’d gotten along with her father. But that didn’t make it hurt any less. It also didn’t take away the guilt. She’d been twenty-one when her dad died. Surely, she could have been mature enough to go to his house and say, “Let’s have dinner?”
Fresh tears erupted at that and she rose from the table to get something to wipe her eyes. After a few seconds of searching for tissues, her frustration with looking collided with her frustration with her life and her tears became full-scale sobbing. “Is there a box of tissues in this room that seems to have everything but tissues?”
Panicked by her tears, he bounced off his seat. “That’s a good question.” He roamed around the room, fruitlessly seeking tissues, and in the end ripped a paper towel off the roll by the sink.
But when he reached her, she wouldn’t look at him again, reminding him of how she wouldn’t look at him after he’d yelled about not wanting to know his family. Regret filled him, along with intense longing to be kind to this woman who’d had a childhood far more difficult than his.
Rather than hand the paper towel to her, he rolled it in a ball and lightly dabbed it along the tracks of her tears.
That brought her gaze to his and he swallowed. She was so beautiful, but right in that moment it wasn’t her beauty that called to him. It was something more, something deeper, something so important he didn’t dare let himself examine it.
But he also couldn’t ignore it. With their gazes locked and tears welling in her eyes again, that “something deeper” inside him wouldn’t let this moment slide away. He lowered his head, watching her eyes darken. With fear? With curiosity? He couldn’t tell. He only knew that if he didn’t kiss her right this second, he would be sorry.
Softly, slowly, he let his lips graze hers, telling her with his actions that he understood and wanted to comfort her.
And every bit as slowly her lips rose to meet his, answering him, accepting his comfort.
The kiss grew as they experimented with the feel and taste of each other’s lips. Arousal surged through him, along with the knowledge that she wasn’t like any other woman he’d ever known. Not even Ginny, a pampered princess who might have had to fight alongside her second husband for success, but who didn’t understand suffering. Sadness. The feeling of not quite living up to the expectations of the person who meant the most to you.
Claire understood. She was a real person. A real woman. Someone with problems and goals, who knew life didn’t always turn out the way you hoped.
She suddenly pulled away from him. “What are you doing?”
She stepped back, gaping at him as if he were crazy. “You told me you’re a mean, coldhearted playboy. Somebody I should stay away from. Why the hell would you kiss me like that?”
Like that. She hadn’t spelled it out, but he knew what she meant. Why had he kissed her like he meant it? Like he had feelings for her. Like they had connected.
His breath caught in his chest and seemed to knot there. What the hell was he doing?
“I need to wash my face.” She took another step back, then turned and raced out of the kitchen.
He rubbed his hand across the back of his neck as he sat at the table again. Vibrating with confusion, he stared at his soup. He couldn’t argue her logic. Didn’t want to apologize. How could he? What would he say? Hey, we connected. Why not kiss? He wasn’t like that. He didn’t want to be like that! He wanted to be left alone.
Yet she needed him. He more than
sensed it. And something inside of him surged with longing to be the one to fix whatever was wrong.
It was absurd. Not just because he’d never wanted to be a great “fixer” of people. He was an iceman. But also because he didn’t know how to fix anybody. Hell, he couldn’t even fix himself.
* * *
Racing up the stairs to the makeshift nursery, Claire just wanted to roll up in a ball and die. She didn’t know what was worse, exposing her secrets to a virtual stranger, or accepting his comfort when she knew deep down inside he didn’t mean it.
Oh, for a few seconds she thought he had. The sweet, sensitive way he’d kissed her made her believe her story had touched him. And maybe it had, but it didn’t mean anything. He was who he was. And by God, she’d promised herself and Joni she wasn’t going to try to change him.
Yet, the second his lips touched hers, her common sense fled out the window!
What the hell was she thinking? They might have a lot of things from their pasts in common, but how long had she known this guy? Twenty-four hours? Only an idiot didn’t learn from her mistakes. And she’d made a huge mistake at university with Ben, a professor she barely knew. She would not make that mistake again. Especially not with a guy nicknamed Iceman.
She stepped into his bedroom and closed the door with a sigh. They had a huge house at their disposal yet they were virtually sleeping in the same room. Sharing a bathroom. Spending twenty-four hours a day together. Telling secrets they hadn’t told another soul. Was it any wonder they were acting out of character?
She splashed water on her face and looked at her reflection in the mirror around the waterfall. This was the danger Joni had warned her about and she’d fluffed off thinking she was strong enough to resist him.
Well, maybe she wasn’t.
Loneliness made her vulnerable; longing for a family had made her take a foolish risk with Ben. Being with Matt seemed to bring out her loneliness and her longing and wish for things in him that absolutely weren’t there.
Unless she wanted to make another mistake, they had to stop having personal conversations. She had to take this time together and make it all about baby lessons again. No more watching his feelings. No more friendly overtures. Nothing but baby lessons.
